such as I remember to have seen ;-for Time, which has made them obsolete, has given them a factitious value. They were what we term 'Chap-Books.' Susan had a considerable collection of them in her box. There was 'The History of Valentine and Orson ;'-'The Seven Champions of Christendom ;' -and The History of the London 'Prentice.' That London 'Prentice, who was called "Aurelius," went to Turkey, destroyed two lions that were prepared to devour him, and married the Emperor's daughter. I see him now, as he is represented in the surprising wood-cut, thrusting his hand down one lion's throat, while the other is howling on his back. 'The History of the Lancashire Witches' was there -real witches who rode on winds; and there, too, 'The History of Mother Shipton.' 'Jack the Giant-Killer' was undoubtedly in Susan's collection, and so Fortunatus.' But the book on which my early friend most pored was the Fortune Book,' which told young men and maids their fortune by drawing cards, and also the signification of moles, and the interpretation of dreams. They are gone -all.

My native town had a very considerable collection of Alms-houses. I was fond of talking to some of the old women who dwelt in them; for they were cleanly and gossiping crones-upon the whole contented with their lot. One of them had a wonderful cat, which had outlived all other cats, having been preserved by the kindness of a predecessor, who had also an equally kind predecessor. The cat was endowed by an old maid with a shilling a-week,

and there was a corporate trustee. Pope's line was no mere imagination

"Die, and endow a college or a cat."

To take care of this cat with nine lives was pleasant occupation. But the greater part of the Almswomen were employed at the Spinning-wheel. There was a spinning charity in the borough,—a bequest in times before Arkwright; and it was the duty of an officer of the corporation to buy flax, and give out flax to be spun, and pay the spinners week by week, and have the flax woven into sheets, which were distributed to poor people according to their deserts. What records of changes are our old charities! How many obsolete bequests to companies and corporations, which time has put aside; and which have, in our enlightened metropolis at least, resolved themselves into the husks of "Epicurus' sty!" I suppose my old Spinners are gone.

If the Spinning-wheel remains, under the protection of "vested interests," the Hour Glass, by which the old spinner used to measure out her little day, is gone. Time has broken his own emblem. But the moral of the pretty antique hour-meter remains, in spite of electric telegraphs. One generation succeeds another. Dynasties perish. Manners change. Be the glass turned once in an hour, or once in a century, the sand is always running out, and always heaping up. To-day is the child of yesterday.

THE FIRST STEP INTO THE WORLD.

In the early Spring of 1812, I stepped for a month or two out of the little world in which I had been living, to come face to face with great public things. I had a friend who was the editor of two daily newspapers, a morning and an evening. What a wonderful man I thought him! I see him now, as I often saw him, sitting in his back office, in a dingy dressing-gown and unshorn beard, dashing off his leader for the evening paper. At two o'clock he dressed, and he kindly took the youth from the country with him for a walk through the Strand, and along the mall in the Park. The Park was a queer unfashioned place then, with a long dirty pond where Charles II. fed his ducks-no plantations-no gravelled walks-no gas lights. But we walked happily enough; and my kind friend told funny Irish stories, and notable anecdotes of Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Ponsonby, with whom he boasted an intimacy. Yet, of the real life about him he knew very little, although he was the Editor of two daily papers. To edit a paper then was not very difficult. Many of the thousand complicated social and commercial questions, that have grown up during our long Peace, were then scarcely known. Parliamentary Reform was con

sidered a dream. If the war was blamed, no one could uphold Napoleon. The tone of the paper was settled by the tone of the party. There were very rarely expresses from great provincial townsand their local intelligence was mostly left to their own journals. Intercourse with foreign States was almost impossible, except through the Government messengers; and they went and came at the cost of several hundred pounds a journey. My good friend's intellect was not greatly tasked. When we had taken our walk, he had a comfortable dinner; drank a bottle of port, sometimes two; had a nap in his chair undisturbed by the hackneycoaches in the Strand; at nine o'clock, strolled down to the House to know what was going on; wrote his morning leader; and went to bed in very decent time.

I was to have a short training for the still easier life of a country editor, by a month or two in 'The Gallery.' The first day I went down was a terrible trial of endurance. There was a call of the House; and it was absolutely necessary for the Reporters to go in before the general public. There was no accommodation whatever for their admission, and no facilities for their work. It was all crush. At these calls the Strangers' Gallery was locked when the Speaker went to prayers, and all further ingress was prohibited. At twelve, then, I was in the gallery, or its lobby; and I stayed there till four o'clock next morning. It was to me a wonderful scene, and I had no desire to leave it. At that call

of the House, there were all the great ones of the day-how few have not obeyed a higher call! -Abbott, Speaker; Gibbs, Attorney-General; Brougham; Burdett; Canning; Castlereagh; Croker; Grattan; Horner; Palmerston; Peel; Perceval; Ponsonby; Romilly; Sir W. Scott; Sheridan; Tierney; Whitbread; Wilberforce. There were illustrious names called in that February, 1812. I take down 'Hansard ;' and I look to see the sort of things I heard debated in that "Tenth Session of the fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom." How obsolete some of the opinions read now! What antiquated states of society they represented! Is it a Parliament of the Regency, or a Parliament of some undated period of 'Once upon a Time?' Take a specimen or two.

The nightly watch of the Metropolis.—There had been murders in London, by which two whole families had been completely exterminated; and Mr. Secretary Ryder moved for a committee to inquire into the state of the nightly watch. Romilly asked where was the daily watch, and whether all the precautions of the nightly watch would provide a remedy against the daring highway robberies committed in the open day?

Death Penalties.-Romilly withdrew his bill for the amendment of the criminal laws, with one exception. He brought in a bill to repeal the Act of Elizabeth, under which soldiers and sailors found begging were punishable with death. But the legislature restored the balance in this session, by